"The governor desires to have your name and rank for his list," said my
neighbor at the right hand.

Having given the required information, I could not help expressing
my surprise how, in the presence of the governor of the prison, they
ventured to speak so freely.

"Ha," said the person I addressed, "he is not the governor of the
Temple; that's merely a title we have given him among ourselves. The
office is held always by the oldest _detenu_. Now he has been here ten
months, and succeeded to the throne about a fortnight since. The Abbe,
yonder, with the silk scarf round his waist, will be his successor, in a
few days."

"Indeed! Then he will be at liberty so soon. I thought he seemed in
excellent spirits."

"Not much, perhaps, on that score," replied he. "His sentence is hard
labor for life at the Bagne de Toulon."

I started back with horror, and could not utter a word.

"The Abbe," continued my informant, "would be right happy to take his
sentence. But the governor is speaking to you."

"Monsieur le sous-lieutenant," said the governor, in a deep, solemn
accent, "I have the honor to salute you, and bid you welcome to the
Temple, in the name of my respectable and valued friends here about me.
We rejoice to possess one of your cloth amongst us. The last was, if I
remember aright, the Capitaine de Lorme, who boasted he could hit the
Consul at sixty paces with a pistol bullet."

"Pardon, governor," said a handsome man in a braided frock; "we had
Ducaisne since."

"So we had, commandant," said the governor, bowing politely, "and a very
pleasant fellow he was; but he only stopped one night here."

"A single night, I remember it well," grunted out a thick-lipped,
rosy-faced little fellow near the bottom of the table. "You 'll meet him
soon, governor; he 's at Toulon. Pray, present my respects--"

"A fine! a fine!" shouted a dozen voices in a breath.

"I deny it, I deny it," replied the rosy-faced man, rising from his
chair. "I appeal to the governor if I am not innocent. I ask him if
there were anything which could possibly offend his feelings in my
allusion to Toulon, whither for the benefit of his precious health he is
about to repair."

"Yes," replied the governor, solemnly, "you are fined three francs. I
always preferred Brest; Toulon is not to my taste."

"Pay! pay!" cried out the others; while a pewter dish, on which some
twenty pieces of money were lying, was passed down the table.

"And to resume,